Using service patterns to design local government online services

The Government Digital Service (GDS) has begun to work with local government teams on transforming their online services to use some of the new technology developed by GDS for central government.

So far, there have been 2 pilot projects across about 15 councils, focusing on parking permit and older person’s concessionary bus pass services. The aim has been to redevelop these services end-to-end using GDS expertise and the new GOV.UK Verify service.

The interesting thing is that GDS has documented in detail the process followed and the resulting patterns. The documentation of each pattern (parking permits, concessionary travel pass) includes a step-by-step breakdown of the user journey. Each step shows the policy that applies to that step, the outcomes of the research undertaken, the resulting design recommendation with reasonings and any interesting code involved.

Although these two pilot services are not really related to social care, there is plenty to learn from the outcomes of the research they’ve done and the design recommendations they have made.